Claire pointed at the sketch.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRlUo5zkWOy
Drawn with a black pen, the jagged line cut through the center like a torn zipper. Twisted. Uneven. Wrong.
“This is what I saw,” she said, voice dry like windblown dust. “In the sky.”
Batman. Nightwing. Robin. All standing around her, staring at the paper.
Yep. Batman was back.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlshEETvqI8
Sure, she’d just seen him “yesterday,” but that was only true for her. Not for them.
They didn’t remember yesterday.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ZTKVWq1sN
She was the only one who did.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGD60FThnb
Again.
91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYpaw64zPWZ
One hour ago
91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ955YVkuvf4
She stood up. Her joints felt stiff—like that rip in the sky had somehow traveled down her spine and into her bones.
“Can you guys... just look at the sky?”91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwdNCcY42js
She asked it like someone who already knew the answer, but still had to ask.
Nightwing and Robin exchanged glances. Then, dutifully, they looked up.
Professional sky-gazing faces.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xQwRQIA92
Like it was part of a rooftop protocol.
Nothing.
“No, not like that,” Claire snapped. “Close your eyes. Look with your eyes closed.”
It made no logical sense. But she sounded very sure of it.
Nightwing hesitated a beat, then obeyed.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtXps21Cou2
Robin looked at her like she’d just asked him to smell the sidewalk—but closed his eyes too.
Two vigilantes. On a rooftop. At night.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0tLkIe23EU
Standing still with eyes shut and faces to the sky.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjD04Hqe1Z1
It looked like some weird silent ritual.
And honestly?91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaaFDYaFFJS
Kinda hilarious.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxJocFxiImj
But Claire couldn’t even smile.
Her fists were clenched, palms sweaty.
A few seconds passed.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYZti5HgTNr
Then they opened their eyes and shook their heads.
“Nothing.”
Her stomach dropped.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ53Vx15REAa
Not disappointment—91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKk0rOZe2k
More like that awful sensation when the last thread holding you to reality starts to snap.
“Please,” she said, softly.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXQby3u5egI
“Tell Batman. I need help.”
Her voice was nearly emotionless.
91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrc4hrVhMlj
By the time Batman arrived, Claire looked like someone who’d just walked out of a morgue.
Pale. Hollow.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCg9yxaDeU4
As if the inside of her brain had been scrubbed raw.
She spoke without inflection. No energy for theatrics.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6xi2AF2GdC
Just repeated the same thing.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQVcNkf1PO5
Over. And over.
She’d already said it yesterday.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHcMouoo7cX
She was saying it again today.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoG0F58inzL
Now it was Round Three.
What was this, a dystopian Groundhog Day?
Could she just get a USB port installed in her head or something?91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyGar7H8fmx
Upload her trauma and call it a day?
Batman listened silently. His face gave nothing away.
Then he said,
“Draw it.”
Claire blinked. Then nodded.
She went behind the counter and rummaged through a drawer. Pulled out a box of pens—the kind she used for doodling on coffee cups.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1kqMHmHnf8
Hearts on Valentine’s. Pumpkins in October.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsVbLGAlGLt
Nothing too serious. Just scribbles for customers when business was slow.
She took a deep breath.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP4mVrXD0zU
Then hunched over the table and began to draw.
The pen scratched against paper. Each stroke felt like it was being yanked out of her skull.
The drawing wasn’t pretty.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvdOl5EIOWS
But it was exact.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpCFmuwd9MA
That split in the sky—a zipper, a rift, maybe an eye—whatever it was, it didn’t belong to this world.
She slid the paper across the table.
Batman. Nightwing. Robin.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR3DdvxgngA
All three stared.
Three different faces.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0RixHYSlSS
Three different kinds of silence.
Claire studied them. Her voice, barely above a whisper:
“So… what do you think this is?”
It was the kind of whisper that floats like paper against a windowpane.
But her eyes were deadly serious.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivAkrfaxBM
The kind of serious that said:
If you tell me I made this up, I’m going to lose it. For real.
91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfPtxQ6UNys
Claire figured she couldn’t really blame them if they thought she was insane.
Honestly, if their roles were reversed, she might’ve thought the same. Who wouldn’t, when someone calmly claimed they were reliving the same day over and over—and also happened to “see the sky split open” when they shut their eyes? It sounded like something between a sci-fi novel and a psychiatric evaluation.
Batman stared at the sketch for a long time.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4bIUz1nnM
His gaze didn’t just study it—it drilled into it, as if he were trying to excavate something buried beneath the paper fibers.
It was the first time Claire realized… he wasn’t as calm as she had assumed.
The silence grew thick, as if some unspeakable truth was quietly pressing out from the sketch itself.
“When did you first see this?”91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH092TYCEW0
His voice was low—not the kind of low that tried to intimidate, but the kind that sounded like it had swallowed something massive and was now digesting dread.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOpE42DwjCM
91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyF5Tuwee62
Claire tried to recall, but her usual nighttime habits got in the way.
She had always avoided going out at night—almost like instinct.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvUW5DgQbTN
Now, trying to pull memories from a part of the day she’d always kept at arm’s length felt like dragging threads from a blank void.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Today was the first time I saw it.”
She immediately wanted to cry—not from sadness, but from how stupid it all felt.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwyEbwYpX7E
Here she was, explaining some urban-legend-tier nonsense to Batman. With zero proof.
“Do you get headaches? Hear voices?”91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYDaucz0d0V
That was Nightwing. His voice was measured, maybe too measured. Like he was running a checklist but didn’t want to admit he was worried.
His eyes gave him away, though.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqf43TS0ZAF
That wasn’t disbelief—it was a quiet, anxious kind of urgency. A desire to help, not dismiss.
Claire shook her head.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiPVhYbiCWK
Hard.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1nP1ahF7GV
Like shaking would erase every lingering “are you just crazy?” that might be forming in their minds.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe5DpseGzx4
She was tired of being questioned. Hell, she was already questioning herself.
“Why only her?”91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡizRbyleGVT
Robin’s voice cut in—not accusing, but contemplative. His eyes moved between the three of them, searching for a logic flaw he couldn’t patch.
Batman lowered his head.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYeAOMWS8zx
His cape shifted slightly, like it was hiding the fact that even he didn’t feel so steady anymore.
He didn’t speak.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmWx6EXWfxO
And somehow that silence was worse.
Claire felt it like a chill under the skin. A subtle, creeping sense of dread.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuJiKINBkcr
Not from the rift. But from his silence.
Then Batman finally spoke.
“If she’s able to consistently perceive a structure no one else can, that implies it’s selectively revealing itself.”
His voice had a kind of emotional distance—not spatial, but psychological.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZAAx1NwxNI
It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t analysis.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk91f91AMTg
It was a warning.
Then he looked at Claire.
And in that moment, his gaze wasn’t warm, or even human.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfWxes1zKMY
It was clinical.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6id9E1lLN2
As if she were no longer a person, but a variable.
“This isn’t just about the loop,” he said. “It might be that the rift itself… is looking back at her.”
Claire’s stomach twisted.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpni8QELS3T
No.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1hkXuv6vyw
This wasn’t just her seeing the rift.91Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBPbC8bacuD
The rift… had seen her.
